For my STEP Signature Project I spent approximately 1.5 months in Copenhagen, Denmark as a software development intern at an early-stage startup. In tandem with this professional experience, I was enrolled in an accelerated entrepreneurship course at the Danish Institute of Study Abroad (DIS) where me and a team of peers created, developed, and pitched our own startups.
My experiences abroad gave me much to reflect upon. The greatest impact that my time in Copenhagen had on me was how I perceived time. More specifically, what quantifies as ‘time well spent.’ In Denmark, and many of the other Western European countries I visited after the conclusion of the program, I felt a sense of slowness that simply does not exist in the United States. Not slowness as in ‘laziness,’ but slowness as in a heightened understanding and appreciation for the ‘here and now.’
The Danes place high emphasis and importance on life outside of school and work. Academic and professional milestones take -on average- longer than they do to achieve in the United States, and the average working week in Denmark is marginally shorter than those typically seen in the States. This is not because the Danes are lazy, rather because their culture places a higher emphasis on working to live rather than living to work. Experiencing this way of life first-hand gave me a radically different perspective on life than what I am accustomed to in the States: both as a student and a working professional.
Several different experiences contributed to this change. Some of the most transformative moments of my trip came from simple discussions over meals. There were many points in my time abroad where I ate with the Danes, whether they be my professors, flat mates, or my colleagues at work. Through these meals we had the opportunity to compare our respective experiences at home and abroad. It was eye-opening to see firsthand how drastically our cultures differed, but equally fascinating how similar we were to each other in many ways.
Simply experiencing the Danish way of life was equally as important to contributing to this understanding of living a more balanced life. Walking through Copenhagen on a typical weekday yielded drastically different experiences than one would find walking through Columbus proper under similar conditions. Shops open later and close earlier, business professionals could be seen out at any time of day: sometimes seemingly doing everything but working, and Danish families with children of all ages could be seen cycling around the city at any time of day. Life in the big city was busy, but there was a collective understanding that there is much more to life than sitting behind a desk.
The Danish art of ‘hygge’ is a perfect summary of these aforementioned experiences. Hygge -pronounced ‘hoo-guh’- has no direct English translation, and its definition can differ slightly depending on who you ask, but it is generally defined as a feeling of coziness or contentment evoked through comfort and/or companionship. Hygge is the soul of the Danish way of life. It is enjoying a ‘kanelsnegl’ -literally cinnamon snail- by candlelight in a quaint cafe. It is having a hearty meal with friends after a long day of work. It is reading a book in your kitchen nook to the soothing backdrop of the storm outside your window. Experiencing hygge is the epitome of living life in the present and gleaning the most out of any given experience.
My time in Copenhagen had a profound impact on me in all spheres of my life. Professionally, it reinforced my interests in data-driven careers and computing. It gave me the confidence that I could learn new skills on the fly and showed me that I could successfully navigate vaguely defined requirements and metrics. It also proved to me that working in a startup environment is much harder than I had ever expected it to be. Academically, it fostered growth in my understanding of startup methodology and what it means to be an entrepreneur. I learned essential project management and planning skills that can be applied to all aspects of my life. I also learned first-hand just how hard it can be to work in a team with little to no blueprint to guide our decisions, and how to resolve difficult internal conflicts when they inevitably arise.
The greatest impacts of the program manifested in my personal growth. I learned through my combined experiences that pursuing your passions is not enough to guarantee your success. In fact, there is no guarantee that you will be successful. The best indicator of success is measured by how many times you can bounce back from your inevitable failures, and how quickly you learn from those failures to influence your future decision making. Additionally, I learned just how important it is to take care of yourself. The hardest working, most successful people I met abroad were also the ones who took sufficient time for themselves to recuperate and steady themselves for the challenges ahead. Finding a balance between work and life is essential for a well-lived life.
